A woman who was separated from her young daughter after asking for asylum at the San Diego border has been released from detention after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on her behalf.

Her seven-year-old daughter remains at a facility in Chicago. The ACLU hopes the family will soon be reunited and is working to find the mother a place to live in Chicago.

Immigration officials did not give the woman's attorneys much notice before releasing her from Otay Mesa Detention Center, said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants’ Rights Project.

“Everything was very abrupt, and she was released without warning,” Gelernt said. “They said it was mandatory release because of the lawsuit, and they were letting her out.”

An attorney picked the woman up and got her a hotel until she can go to Chicago, Gelernt said.

“She’s overwhelmed with emotion and happiness,” Gelernt said. “I think she’s basically in shock, just trying to get her bearings.”

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed the woman's release.

“This individual is no longer in ICE custody,” Mack said. “No other details are available in light of pending litigation.”

According to court documents filed by the government attorneys on Wednesday, the woman withdrew her asylum claim in January and was ordered removed from the U.S.

Her immigration attorney then asked for a judge to reconsider her case, and ICE granted a stay on her deportation on Tuesday, the filing says. Then, officials released her from detention.

The court document also says that ICE officials have doubts that the woman and child are related and that they are in the process of getting DNA testing for the case.

The woman and then-six year old asked for asylum from the Democratic Republic of Congo at the San Ysidro port of entry at the beginning of November. They were held a few days together before officials sent them to different long-term custody facilities.

“When the officers separated them, Ms. L. could hear her daughter in the next room frantically screaming that she wanted to remain with her mother,” the complaint says, using the lawsuit’s nickname for the Congolese woman.

The daughter has since turned seven.

The lawsuit, which argues that the government should not be able to split families without a court hearing where officials have to justify the reason, is ongoing at least until the mother is reunited with her child, Gelernt said.

“There remain many other families who have been separated, and we will continue to attack this horrific family separation practice,” Gelernt said.

Federal officials have floated the idea of separating families at the border as a deterrent but have not made an official policy change.

Along the southwest border, various human rights groups have spotlighted individual cases, including four fathers whose children were taken from them after they came to the San Ysidro port of entry to ask for asylum.

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